Seven Pounds - 15 April 2022

Quickly lose weight!  I just lost about seven pounds.  It may be temporary but it sure was fast.  My secret?  Well, I shall tell you.

COVID seems to be winding down.  I emphasize seems because the hospitalization numbers are down, I have my full vaxx and booster, and the weather is getting nicer.  After two years of caution and lock-in, it feels like it should be OK to get out and circulate a little among selected (healthy) groups. So I did.  We have a group, a delegation, visiting Seattle from France.  Although 2020 was the 45th anniversary of the twinning of Seattle (USA) and Nantes (FR), COVID postponed the plans for an exchange of delegate groups.  In early 2022, all the signs were shaping up and they culminated in a group of 40-50 visitors from Nantes arriving in Seattle.  The group represented maritime, aviation, elected/municipal, and cultural interests.  From this, a series of meetings and explorations were planned throughout the week to explore opportunities.  During the times of roaring COVID, we had arranged cultural exchanges such as art shows and a collaborative beer, #8000Kilometers with Lantern Brewing, and some face-time allowed us to seek other common interests and issues.  

As a cultural and social activity, the local Seattle-Nantes Sister City Association hosted a potluck dinner that featured local and American foods.  This brought people together for an evening of socializing.  We were brave: we went without masks indoors.  I left the event very tired and went to bed somewhat late.

It was not a pleasant night.  I woke in the middle of the night with classic symptoms of the flu.  A low-grade fever, general pains, nausea, dry heaves.  I was sorta-kinda OK until I went into the kitchen for some water.  The lingering smell of warmed pizza (a midnight snack for someone else) hit me like a bat and I went straight for the toilet to empty my stomach.  I went back to bed and repeated this dry/wet pattern a couple more times.  I was pretty empty, dehydrated, groggy, and listless.  I belabor all this because I do not think it was COVID - no breathing problems at all - just classic influenza symptoms coming down hard.  I basically napped the next day and only kept down about four ounces of water throughout the day.  The second night was unpleasant but far better than the first.  I slept better, even after napping much of the day, and did not need to get up.

During this time, I skipped a pub crawl in the Ballard area one evening and a mayoral reception in Seattle the next.  Sacrifices were made.

I woke up the next morning feeling fine.  A bit dehydrated throughout the day, but alert and feeling fine.  

So with this as context, I dropped seven pounds in 48 hours.  I do not recommend the method, but I must admit it is effective.  I shall do my best to make the advances stick and even multiply them, but that is only a silver lining from a very dark cloud.

The photo is from the Seattle Japanese Garden in the Arboretum.

Because of Easter weekend, US Taxes are due Monday, 18 April.

Backup your data - 4 April 2022

Backups are your friend.

I was working for a large company in the 1980s that was delivering a large project to replace thousands of "dumb" terminals (think "IBM 3270", but not as smart) and dumb displays with "smart" PC-based systems connected on a large LAN.  The Great PC Invasion and Distributed Computing Revolution were underway, so the company had hired a a collection of experienced PC and minicomputer programmers who were led by a management team of Mainframe Gods (as they viewed themselves).  As a bunch of hot-shot PC and UN*X types, we demanded a version control system and a tool for backing up the source tree.  In their wisdom, the Mainframe Gods chose not to invest in spurious tech like backups and version control, therefore each programmer had a personal responsibility to back up their source code.  As you might imagine, this was only loosely honored by most of the staff.  For all intents and purposes, there was no backup.  There was, however, one developer who was nominally the build engineer and therefore kept all the current, official source in one place:  on his PC.  Let us call him Bob because that is not his name.  

Bob was a big guy.  He was at least six feet tall and sturdily built - think "footballer" but soft, pudgy, and pale.  Bob was soft-spoken and kept his opinions to himself.  Mostly.  He had his eccentricities, such as a fondness for rifles that he kept in the trunk (boot) of his car.  He was a hard worker and wrote a lot of code.  Lacking any sort of code-review process, I cannot say how good the code was, but he wrote a lot of it and he delivered the official software builds for the terminal-emulation software that ran on the PCs.  To do the build, he had the sole copy of all the official source code residing on his PC.

After a long-running series of, uh, issues, Bob had a Big MeToo moment of such significance that he quit simultaneously with being fired.  Rather than make a fuss, management allowed Bob to finish the work day.  During the afternoon of that day, Bob's manager looked out the window to see Bob loading boxes and boxes of floppy disks into his car.  This was a curious action to take on one's final day of work.  On a hunch, Bob's manager went to Bob's desk and found Bob's PC in the midst of a FORMAT operation that had wiped most of the disk.  And thereby wiped the only known copy of the official sources from the face of the earth.  Bob's manager intercepted him at the elevator and they walked together to Bob's manager's office for a conversation.  It seems that the floppies in Bob's car were the backups, the ONLY backups now that his PC disk was blank.  To his credit, Bob's manager talked Bob off the cliff and got the backups returned to the office.  Then he escorted Bob to a nearby coffee shop to finish the day off-premises.  Someone was tasked to extract the backups from the floppies to the now-blank PC so that we could continue the project.  The project did eventually succeed, but we did have further harrowing moments with more conventional causes.  We did establish regular backups and duplication of key source code.

The moral of the story:  back up your data.  Trust but verify.

Nantes Park, Seattle WA - 27 March 2022

Yesterday was a big day for Nantes Park in West Seattle, WA.  While a part of the City of Seattle, West Seattle is a neighborhood that carries a distinct identity and history.  Today, it is a bit isolated from downtown Seattle by the repairs being done to the West Seattle Bridge, but West Seattle is adjacent to the original settlement of Seattle, now known as Alki Point.  (I am a little muddled on the details, but the history is there.)  But back to our story.

In conjunction with the local neighborhood group and the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, the Seattle-Nantes Sister City Association (SNSCA) is in the midst of a restoration project for Nantes Park.   In addition to a general refurbishment of the grounds, SNSCA is installing a new walkway in the park that is ADA compliant, an art project for the sinuous knee-wall, and an art project for the butterfly friendly garden.  

The wall project is to install a set of ceramic tiles featuring art from students in Seattle WA and Nantes, France.  The tiles will add color to the park as well as a bit of French culture by incorporating quotes from French artists.

The garden project is a set of whimsical heads on mythical creatures.

My descriptions are lacking - the art additions are designed to make the park more welcoming to kids.

As a fund-raiser, the SNSCA and the Seattle Sister Cities Association have published a cookbook, The International Table, available directly from SNSCA and at bookstores throughout metropolitan Seattle.  The cookbook features recipes selected to represent favorite foods of the varied sister cities of Seattle yet remain approachable by the American cook.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson - 22 March 2022

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is presently being reviewed by a committee of the U.S. Senate for a position on the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS).  There are many arguments coming up.  We can put aside the arguments from the people that want Yet Another White Man because they are so familiar and so expected.  The noisy protestations from Cruz, Hawley, Graham, and Blackburn (I think) fall along the expected lines based on racism and hot-button issues with little inherent meaning (CRT - Critical Race Theory), and so the argument that stands significant to me is the split along originalism and "lived experience".  

A repeated argument in favor of Judge Jackson is that she expands the SCOTUS to represent a broader slice of America.  She adds a point of view not already on the court, not in the history of the court.  Besides being the first black woman on SCOTUS, and besides being one of the few women on the SCOTUS, she is an experienced defense attorney.  She was a public defender, defending those arrested for crimes.  Further, she has defended some of those locked up in Guantanamo for crimes during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Most (perhaps even all) prior Justices on SCOTUS have had experience on the prosecuting side of cases rather than the defense side.  The Judge's experience broadening perspective of the Court is viewed as a Good Thing.  The Judge is expected to apply her "lived experience" as a defense lawyer to issues brought to the SCOTUS.

The originalists generally advocate a literal interpretation of the Constitution.  They feel that the words of the Constitution must carry the argument.  If the Constitution does not mention "privacy", then there can be no "right of privacy"; the Constitution states a "right to bear arms", so there is an impregnable right to "bear arms"; and so on.  This originalist model is either lazy or intellectually bankrupt.  It is lazy when one fails to take the words from 1789 and adapt them to nearly 250 years of change.  The 1789 document, itself, is a replacement for the Articles of Confederation that were barely two decades old, and the 1789 document, itself, spells out procedures to amend (change) the very document.  The originalist model is intellectually bankrupt because it denies the 27 amendments, it denies 250 years of change in the world, and because it binds us to a mind-reading exercise of a group of white men from 250 years ago.  White men who owned property, who owned slaves, who were only familiar with 18th Century technology, and white men who, themselves, were arguing that change is a necessary part of the human existence.  The famed original authors did not ever argue for stasis or stagnancy or they would never have started out on the revolutionary path that they followed.  The Jeffersons and Franklins of the 18th Century argue in favor of change and in favor of adapting to lived experience.

The reactionaries of today, generally the GOP Republicans, and the Federalist Society are arguing that our judicial system be run on the basis and mores of the 18th Century, and such an argument is bogus.

Let us proceed with all due haste to confirm Judge Jackson to the Supreme Court.

Masking protocols - 18 March 2022

 Across Washington, the COVID-defense masks are no longer required in most areas.  We spent months (years?) dealing with mask mandates, finally learning to remember to wear them and now - poof! - gone.  We spent uncounted dollars experimenting with various designs and quality, finally settling on some cone-like N95 masks.  Early on, the masks were nearly a dollar each for disposables and the price has dropped dramtically (less than $0.25 each).  We have learned how to air them out for reuse.  All that is now by the wayside.  Or is it?

While the state no longer requires masks, a new Omicron variant is growing in the world.  China seems to be suffering and the maps show that Japan is stressed.  There are areas of the map showing some success over the virus, but I believe that there are agencies of note that are faking the numbers.  Florida reports numbers similar to or better than Washington (state), and that is simply not believable.  But I was talking about masks.

I have decided that I will continue to wear a mask routinely in public areas.  With people I know, I can make an informed choice to wear or not wear a mask, but for the public areas where I have little or no knowledge (generally indoors, but specifically stores), I will continue to wear a mask.  This raises the question - what if someone accosts me about my mask?

I initially thought of a couple of responses.  Silence has merit; just ignore the bozo.  Unfortunately, some of the bozos will not be ignored, they will continue to press their case in the face of silence, and they will not be disuaded.  I thought about responding, "my body, my choice", but that gives a mistaken impression of support for those who refused to wear masks when they were mandated.  And there is the problem that many of the bozos will not understand.  I thought about saying "condition of my parole" as a humorous response, but many bozos are humor-impaired.  

After further consideration, I have decided that I will take surreptitious looks to the left and the right, then quietly say "facial recognition" in a knowing tone of voice.  I feel this is sufficiently mocking of the Qanon folks and it is positive.  Those outside the bozo and Qanon communities will understand the joke.  I hope.

 

Fourteen days and counting - 10 March 2022

The Russian 2022 Invasion of Ukraine continues and we have reached the two-week point.  I just watched a video of a YouTuber that I generally follow.  He left Ukraine shortly after the 2022 Invasion started and made his way to Budapest, Hungary.  His name is Johnny and his recent video is here.  It makes me think a bit more about Putin's motives, options, intentions, and the invasion.  

The people who expect this Invasion to be over soon are severely optimistic.  The good-hearted people of Hungary and Poland are responding with great generosity.  They are accepting a large influx of displaced peoples and making arrangements for the people to have a place to stay and food to eat.  Other countries are constructing special immigration conditions and visas to allow the displaced people to move out across Europe.  This is great now, but how long can it last?  How long can someone in Budapest have a small family living in a spare bedroom?  How long can the collective countries provide a river of food and supplies for this guests?  Even the good-hearted have their limits.

And what about the displaced peoples themselves?  They do not want hand-outs.  They do not want a life of living in the corners of someone else's life.  They want to live and work in a society.  They want to build a better society.  All the goodwill and handouts in the world will not give them purpose.  In the West, we need to understand this situation.  We need to understand Putin's intentions and what will make him stop.

As I mentioned a couple days ago, he may leave this mortal coil.  That would bring a quick end, but then we need to think about Putin's successor.  Will that person be better?  Or worse?  Lenin was a monster, but Stalin was worse.  Gorbachev and Yeltsin showed some degree of improvement, but then Putin came along.  This is a great, looming question.

It seems reasonable to predict that Putin will continue to prosecute his war.  It may not take the few days that he expected but the sunk cost and the consequences of failure will keep Putin and the entire Russian military moving forward.  If the military machine stalls, we could have a stalemate, a front that lives in-place.  That is the lesson of Crimea.  Putin could be happy with that outcome for another decade.  He would declare the de-Nazification suffessful and complete, and everyting would settle down along some line of battle.  The (generally) eastern portions of Ukraine would gradually become fully integrated into Russia; the (generally) western portions of Ukraine would assemble some sense of normalcy and resume a shadowed existence.  The shadow hanging over them would be the next Putin invasion, somewhere around 2027-2030 to grab the next bit of Ukraine.  This is something like the Korea model, now approaching 70 years old.  If some sort of guerilla war continues, it would be more like the Viet Nam model.

It seems highly unlikely that the Russian army would do any meaningful sort of retreat.  Such would be predicated on the end of Putin, either via the mortal coil departure, via some internal struggle or replacement by parties in Moscow, or a combination of the two.  Putin can stop the Russian Army but he cannot retreat.

All of the above could take years to resolve, during which the fighting will continue with some degree of intensity.  As the weather gets better in the summer and fall, the fighting will probably get more intense, while the winter cold and spring rains will probably reduce the level of fighting, although not stopping it.

During those years, what will the western nations do?  And what will China do?  It seems that China will exploit the situation, leverage its position as the only large trading partner remaining wiht Russia.  The US can do little about this because of the massive Chinese Manufacturing System.  If China stops or merely slows the manufacture of electronics, clothing, appliances, and component parts necessary for comfort in the western countries, there will be sudden changes in support.  The price of gasoline (petrol) has gone up in the last two weeks and people (Fox News) are already questioning why we are against Russia in Ukraine.  (For the record, Tucker Carlson of FOX News on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Laura Ingraham is not far from Carlson.)  So China will continue to support Russia and keep something resembling an economy alive in Russia.  This will be done in some manner beneficial to China, but it shall be done.

And what will happen to support for Ukraine in the US when the newest Apple iPhone is delayed?  When the clothing stores start to run out of all that stuff?  Will Americans continue to accept explanations that blame the "supply chain" or will they demand that their electronic addiction be satisfied?  Will they pay more for jeans made in the US or will they demand cheap clothing from China?  

The good news is that the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be moving to the chronic stage and will kill fewer people.  The COVID-19 story of the last two years is (sort of) going away.  The bad news is that Putin invaded Ukraine and it will take years to recover.

Spring is springing - 8 March 2022

 After the sunny days of recent times, I expected another sunny day today, but no such luck.  After the rain passage this morning, I got out for a little clean-up in the yard.  In particular, I scraped rust and flaking paint from the trellises, sanded them, and applied a rust converter.  They are actually in pretty good shape, so it was not a lot of work.  I will let the rust converter dry overnight and then apply another anti-rust spray before I finally apply some finish paint.

The photo has nothing to do with the yardwork or the rust work, but it presents a sense of the spring-like weather we have had in the last few days.

Twelve days and counting... for many more days - 8 March 2022

Putin directed the Russian forces to invade the non-Crimea part of Ukraine on 24 Feb 2022, about twelve days ago.  The larger war started in about February 2014 when Putin annexed Crimea and started an on-going conflict in Donbas.  Many American citizens, American journalists, and people around the world are cheering the military resistance of the Ukrainian forces and take some sort of a positive view of the imminent results.

I regret to say that I believe this is going to be a long war.  Years long, if not perpetual (for a poetic definition of "perpetuity").  I will lay out my thinking here.

Afghanistan.  The Soviet-Afghan war ran a decade, from about 24 Dec 1979 to 15 Feb 1989 (says Wikipedia).  This was a bloody war, an expensive war, and a losing war, but they pursued it doggedly.  (I am sad to add that the American political leaders learned nothing from this and proceeded to repeat the foolishness from about 2001-2021, but that is another screed.)  The Soviets learned nothing from their Afghan invasion and are applying that same stupidity to their present war.  This is a repeating theme.  Another way of saying this is to observe that blood and treasure mean little to the Russian elite in their attempts to gain land and prestige; I do not pretend to understand what they see as "prestige" but it is clear that it is important to that leadership.

Chechnya.   The Russians fought a scortched-earth policy to pursue the Chechen wars and all they got was a phyrric victory or two.  As in Afghanistan, the (now) Russians poured blood and treasure into the wars, claimed land and prestige, and learned nothing.

Crimea.  The Russians annexed Crimea in about March 2014 at minor cost.  They continued some form of war in Donbas at minor cost.  They learned something from this case - that military force can be applied without major consequences.

Trump.  The Russians learned that a stooge like Trump can give them everything they want without overt cost.  It has taken a year, but Putin has finally realized that the stooge is out of office, so he has returned to traditional methods - military force.

Ukraine.  Although the early days of the Russian invastion of Ukraine in 2022 are going badly for Russia, the willingness of Putin to pour blood and treasure into the invasion in order to achieve his political goal of restoring Ukraine to the Russian Empire will make it impossible for him to give up or turn back.  The blood and treasure are not important to him, but the land and prestive are - as we have seen before.  

This leads to consideration of the possible outcomes.  In no particular order, I shall tread heavily where learned people fear to tread.

Low-level war for an extended period.  I suspect this is the most likely outcome.  The Ukraine government and people will resist with the covert and overt support of other countries throughout the world, but featuring support from the US, EU/NATO, and allied countries.  As in Viet Nam and the East, as in the colonial struggles across Africa, and as in South America, one bloc of the world will stimulate military action and the other bloc of the world will support efforts to resist military action.  Nominally, the Ukrainian resistance will be a democratic government against the autocracy of Putin, but the West has shown that this is not required.  Expected duration is on the order of a decade and the expected result is unclear (hard to predict).  In any outcome, it will not be pretty for Ukraine.  One big unknown is the duration of the firm resistance (sanctions) by other governments.  If Biden or Macron are replaced by weaker individuals, the alliances could well slip into posturing and this would allow Putin to survive and even prosper.  The bumbling of Boris Johnson and the UK government is a case study, especially as they are distracted by the aftermath of Brexit.  If Biden is replaced in 2024 by a dimwit from the Republican ranks, resistance to Putin will quickly go the way of BJ et al.

Putin's exit.  If things get bad enough in Ukraine and in Russia, the autocrats and bureaucracy in Russia could find a convenient replacement for Vladimir Putin.  This is very unpredictable.  Putin is happy to crack down on the population to quell opposition and independent journalism, so it is unlikely that the populus will rise up against Putin.  That means the oligarchs and autocrats must manage and direct the bureaucracy (and the military) to move Putin out of the picture, either suddenly (perhaps through violent means) or gradually (less violent).  Putin will not go willingly, and he has spent the better part of the last two decades pruning the bureaucracy to eliminate dissent and nurturing the oligarchs to cement their loyalty.  The pressure of sanctions must hit hard against the wealthy in Russia, hard enough to make their lives miserable, before they will even consider action.  Eventually, one of them will be brave enough to restack the apples on the cart so that Putin is rolled into the bin.

Putin's trauma.  Senator Lindsay Graham has called for the assassination of Putin (I find it strange  and seriously out-of-character that Senator Ted Cruz opposes this, but the idea is so blindly stupid that even Cruz sees it as a bridge too far;  so far, we have no word from the nutcakes like Greene and Boebert, so maybe the spoke to Cruz before blathering in public).  To be complete, there is a remote chance that Putin will suffer a sudden health set-back, either through natural forces or as induced by an otherwise unpredictable vector.  I call this The Mule Factor after the character in the Asimov Foundation novels.  The character of The Mule is an unpredictable factor that intrudes on the orderly predictions of Hari Seldon and his mathematics, destablizing the Foundation and placing the Galatic order at risk.  Putin, himself, is somewhat of a Mule, and an anti-Putin would also be a Mule.  While we can make predictions about large groups of people, the actions and decision of a single individual are very difficult to anticipate.  Therefore, the singular event of trauma that removes Putin from consideration cannot be predicted with any confidence at all.  

The rise of Putin has been a singular event and that event or process can end in many ways.  There is a much longer screed that could be written about this, but Yeltsin (a Mule) gave way to Putin (a Mule), creating much unpredictability and confusion.  In a similar way, the incompenance and stupidity of Trump (a Mule) was easily manipulated by Putin, creating much unpredictability and confusion.  In light of this compounded confusion of unpredictable players and forces, the rest of the world has fallen back into traditional patterns that are derived from the Cold War.  We are looking at a restoration of a Communist bloc and a Western bloc with new names and revised players.  There is also the possibility of a Chinese bloc rising, but the world would align along two or three great divisions.  We may learn yet more from the foresight of Orwell.

I would like to hope that Putin slips away in his sleep in the next few days, but then we have to think about his replacement and it is not at all clear who that would be or what policies they might pursue.  The future is very hard to predict, so let us think of cats.

The Official First Mowing of 2022 - 6 March 2022

Yesterday was the last day for which sunset is before 6pm until late October.  The Vernal Equinox arrives in two weeks.  After much snow and rain, the weather has started to warm a bit into the upper 40s and touching 50F.  Therefore, the grass has decided to grow again and it is necessary to start to mow again.  With a break in the rains and a few sunny days, I charged up the batteries overnight to be ready for today.  I pulled out the new mower, an EGO battery-powered self-propelled mulching mower; there is probably an acronym for that, but EGO BPSPMM does not roll off the tongue and I shall not use it.  I was confident that I was prepared and ready to mow.  How hard can this be?

I put on my safety shoes, a pair of old hiking boots now retired.  I pulled the mower handle to full length and locked it in place.  I rotated the handle to the middle position to be comfortable for my height.  I slotted in the battery with a solid push, punched the ON/OFF button, pulled the safety bail, and pushed the go-forward palm-buttons.  The mower lit up and moved forward.  Unfortunately, the mower was strangely quiet and there did not seem to be any mowing action taking place.  The grass was pushed over but did not appear trimmed behind me.  

I probably violated a dozen safety warnings when I put the mower up on a pair of sawhorses so that I could see what was going on underneath.  The oddly quiet bit that I had noticed earlier was confirmed by inspection: the blades were not rotating.  I started with some simple diagnostics: battery fully seated (the mower propelled itself but maybe another contact was not supplying power for the blades), reseat the battery, switches fully depressed, headlights work, mower handle fully extended and locked in place.  No joy, so I came into the house to check some YouTube videos.

The first two videos both concluded that a safety switch in the handle extension/lock device was the problem and the solution was to bypass the switch.  I was reluctant to bypass a safety device, so I watched a third video.  This guy started going down the same path, dismantling various housings to inspect the wiring and switches beneath each.  When he got to the main housing where my hands go (as the operator), he took apart and demonstrated how the main power switch works.  This was the aha! moment.  I had taken the ON/OFF switch as the usual push-on-push-off momentary toggle switch.  Not so!  There is a mechanical interlock involved with the starting bail, so one pushes the ON/OFF switch and holds it while pulling on the starting bail.  I had released the ON/OFF switch, so the mechanical interlock did not engage when I pulled back the bail.  

User error.

Once I held the ON/OFF switch will engaging the bail, everything worked fine.  I mowed the three tranches of the lawn with no problems.  I have not yet turned the outside water back on, so the hose cleaning will have to wait until the next mowing party.  After mowing the front yard, the battery has only descended by one bar (from 5-full to 4-partial).

Two notes on the grass.  The grass seed that I applied a month ago did little.  I speculate that it has been too cold to sprout, therefore it went to feed the birds.  Furthermore, any seed that may have remained was probably washed away by the rains.  The other note is that the moss is doing well.  Major swathes of the bright green lawn are moss rather than grass, so I have to get out the dethatcher for a workout.  Given that I am also struggling with moss on the asphalt of the driveway and the cement of the walkways, this is no surprise.  This has been a really good year for moss.

Doctor and Scouter Doug Lambrecht - 2 March 2022

Yesterday was the two-year anniversary of the death of Dr. Doug Lambrecht.  I knew Doug through BSA Scouting as well as his sons and family.  COVID reached the shores of the United States in 2020 through a nursing home in Kirkland.

First Covid-19 outbreak in a U.S. nursing home raises concerns

Doug was recovering from medical treatment in the Kirkland nursing home when he was stricken.  He succumbed on 1 March 2020.

Obituary - James Douglas Lambrecht, MD

Doug should not be remembered as an early American casuality of COVID-19 for he was more than that.  Beyond his role as a father and his position as an emergency medicine doctor, both important and significant roles, he was a great scouter and a fine friend.  Doug was an Assistant Scoutmaster for BSA Troop 573 in Woodinville WA.  I do not know for how long, probably a solid 10 years and likely longer.  He was not a scouter in name, but a supporter and active scout.  Two of his sons were active scouts and Doug was never far behind.  I recall many outings and events with Doug, but the one I recall best is a backpacking trip on the Pacific coast near Lake Ozette WA.  That trip was not monumental, but Doug was there, he was present, and he was in it for the scouts.  He knew when to help and when to observe.  He knew when a few word were right and when silence was best.  He was a rock of good humor against which problems could splash and then fade away.  Doug walked and talked the Scout Law.

An Interesting Hiring Situation - 24 February 2022

News is circulating today (US time) that Russia has invaded Ukraine.  In a show of force, the Ukrainians are fighting back but they are badly outnumbered.  To take my mind off of the news, I was musing about the current "antiwork" movement of individuals that seek to avoid work and the rat-race.  It is complicated, but it caused me to think back to a time when I was working for United Airlines in the late 1980s.

I was working in an organization that was geographically split between suburban Chicago and Denver, named EXOKT and DENKT.  In the EXOKT branch, we were recruiting for a programmer.  After the usual series of interviews, we found a candidate, made an offer, and he accepted.  

He showed up on the Monday that was his start date.  Unfortunately, he did not show up on Tuesday.  Concerned that something may have happened, my boss (and his new boss) called the new employee's home to see that he was OK.  The employee's wife answered the phone to say that Employee was "at work".  My boss was quick witted enough to ask, "oh, can you give me his number at work?"  The wife gave it, so our boss called the Employee "at work".  The Employee answered the phone, "Employee, XYZ Corp.", where XYZ was not United Airlines.  Our boss identified himself and said "you are fired."

Evidently the Employee had not resigned from his old job and was trying out both to see which one he liked.  His choices were quickly truncated.  This was about 1987 or so. 

File Extensions - 19 February 2022

Many moons ago, in the times known as 1997 or so, I was working for Digital Equipment Corporation, commonly known as DEC.  Although the use of the name "DEC" was disparaged by much of the corporation in favor of "digital" (with the small 'd'), I was working in a location proudly known as DECwest in Bellevue WA.  I had been working in the UNIX OS storage software group, named variously Ultrix, DEC OSF/1, and eventually DEC UNIX, but it became time for a change, so I was interviewing for a position in the Windows group.  

In one of the interviews, I was talking to an engineer (rather senior, as I recall) and he asked a question:  how would my program check the file type.  In brief diversion, the file type was simply the type of information contained within a file, be it a directory, a text file, a photo file, an executable file, and so on.  Knowing he was in the Windows group, I gave first the Windows answer; viz., check the file extension.  In this way, ".txt" is a text file, ".jpg" is a photo file in JPEG format, ",exe" is an executable, ".doc" is a text file in WORD format, and so on.  Before he could go on to the next question, I added quickly that this was totally unreliable.  with a trivial name change ('rename'), a file could be marked as any type of file with no regard to the actual contents.  This would cause endless user confusion; "I open the '.doc' file and the application crashes all the time" because someone had renamed a '.txt' file to end with a '.doc'.  Therefore, I counseled, a careful programmer would open the file and look for signature information.  This signature inspection might be guided by the file extension, but the extension should only be treated as a hint or a starting point.  The interviewer did not like this answer because it was, in fact, a major short-coming in Windows.  

I got the job, anyway.

Siriously - 15 February 2022

After a trial period of three months, after repeated hounding, and with a final offer, I have succumbed to SiriusXM.

My then-new car came with a trial subscription to SiriusXM.  It was free (or included), so I gave it a try.  It had come with a rental car and  I had enjoyed that little experience, so I figured it would be something useful to listen to on those long highway drives.  During the trial, my actual results were mixed.  There were spots where service faded out.  I was not really surprised by the tunnels and overpasses, but driving down tree-lined roads seemed to be a problem.  In particular, there is a stretch of a nearby arterial, an uphill bit with overhanging trees, that repeatedly faded out.  At the end of my free trial, I decided that the value simply was not there.  The situation was compounded because COVID hit, and my time in the car dropped dramatically.  I will soon work out the numbers, but my daily car driving went to the odd trip out, so the implied value of the SiriusXM service dropped.  I let the free trial drop.

In December, I received a three-month trial offer from SiriusXM.  As it did not require a credit card, I was free of the automatic-sign-up problem and I took it.  I have been trying it in the car, and it has been OK.  Initially, there was a lot of Christmas music and then I switched over to Beatles and Oldies with a bit of Jazz.  It has been OK, but the fading seems to be unchanged (that same hilly bit on the nearby arterial continues to fade).  However, SiriusXM is branching out and now has a streaming service that works through the SiriusXM app and through Amazon Alexa.  That is a nice addition, and I am getting rather addicted to the capability.  

The final straw came when SiriusXM offered me a final-final-final deal:  five bucks a month for a year, plus the "premium" service (I think that means the streaming), and a free Amazon Alexa device.  Although I do not need yet another Alexa device, that basically makes the offer free, so I bit.  I have subscribed for a year.  We shall see where this leads us.  I did set a reminder for about 12 months from now so that I remember to make a decision about renewal.

 

Oscars 2022 announced - 10 January 2022

Nominees for the movie industry Oscar awards were announced the other day.   I took brief notice, the radio report ended, and I went on with my day.  I have never been impressed with the Oscars, but probably not for the usual reasons.

Some people are wrapped up in the Oscars.  They have a favorite movie, or a preferred actor/actress/director that they feel makes the finest films in the world, films or roles deserving of permanent positions in the firmament.  So-and-so really captures the heart of a character, a writer or composer nails the story, or a cinematographer sets the perfect mood.  All this may be true.  But.

We get Oscar winners ever year.  For 2022, there is guaranteed to be a Best Movie, a Best Actor, a Best Producer, a Best Foley Actor, and so on, even if there is really nothing outstanding in those fields.  Oh, but surely there is a Best Actor, just look at the performance by <insert name here>!  And, yes, some individual will have the best performance doing some aspect of a move in 2022, but does that person deserve to be remembered?  Quick - who won Best Director in 2000?  Maybe you know that one, so do you remember the plot of the Best Movie in 1997?  I have no idea, and those are relatively recent.  If I were to go back to the 1950s, how many Oscar winners could  you remember?  According to oscars.org, Sam Mendes for American Beauty, The English Patient, and the 1950s were the days of Brando, Bogart, Kelly, Dandridge, Wyman, and others.  I have seen neither American Beauty nor The English Patient, or, if I have seen them, I do not recall them in any way.   This is not to say that they are bad movies or bad actors, but that the bulk of the Oscar movies are not memorable, therefore they do not really deserve awards.

If the Oscars were to hold to the vision of the Academy of Motion Pictures, there would be a None Of The Above choice and it would win on a routine basis.  Those years when no particular movie was better than average would have None designated as the winner of the Best Movie or No One designated as Best Supporting Actor.  If this were done, I might believe that the Oscars were memorable, but as long as the Academy keeps giving awards to unmemorable practitioners of the motion picture arts, I will have a hard time remembering (or caring) who wins what Oscar.  For me, the Oscars, like most of these organized and annual award ceremonies, are often Participation Ribbons, forgotten when the new season starts.

To compensate for my negative message, I will leave you, dear Reader, with a picture of a cat.

Another shooting - 9 February 2022

Although my blog headline is a tad misleading, the problem remains the same.  The particular shooting that triggered this note is not from today, but I am sure there will be another shooting today or any moment.  It has become impossible to keep up with the shootings; we have so many.  But I refuse to accept that this is acceptable.

For reference, an article complains that the recent Richland shooter  "had been experiencing declining mental health for weeks."   Richland Fred Meyer shooter: A tale of fraying mental health and early warnings  The article explains that the sooter was showing signs of instability and he had been seen with a gun.  As of now, it appears premeditated, although I cannot find a report that says what the motive might have been.

We are trapped.  A large minority has prevented governments in the US from taking guns out of ciculation.  Opponents say that this deprives law-abiding citizens from their right to own guns.  (This is completely bogus, but that is for another day.)  The opponents give no suggestions or methods to identify the law-abiding gun owners from the (one assumes) criminals.  As a result, everyone gets guns, lawful or criminal, sane or insane, stable or declining.  As a result, innocent people die.

A key element of the problem is that we (as a society) have no way to determine who is "sane" and who is not until a victim is dead.  We have psychologists, psychoanalysists, sociologists, and counselors, but none of them are able to identify risky groups or individuals. 

Until we can figure out what is going on, we have to restrict guns.

That's amore! - 7 February 2022

We were in Sorrento a couple years ago (2005?). We arrived on the train, late in the evening, tired, and not knowing anything about the place, two tired adults and two overstimulated kids. We happened past a pizza parlor on our way from the train station to our hotel.  Walking by, we saw that the pizza parlor was packed, just packed.  The waiters walked among the tables to take orders and deliver pizzas, the fire in the pizza oven glowed warmly in the back, and the rough rafters were almost completely obscured by hanging legs of proscuitto. The town was generally dark and this magnified the presence of the little pizza parlor.  A few blocks of walking got us and our luggage to our hotel.

The kids were famished and nothing else seemed open at that hour on a Sunday night, so two of us headed back to the pizza parlor.  We got some pizza for take-out and returned to the hotel with our feast.  It was fabulous.  Time have changed, Sorrento has changed, it is really hard to be definitive, but I am going to guess it was the Pizzeria de Franco.  It is about the right location, hard by the Circumvesuviana train station for Sorrento.  

We went back to Sorrento a few years later (2010?) and found the same pizzeria.  This time, we got a table and ate there.  It was just as good as the first visit.

Espresso and Preparing for Spring - 7 February 2022

Espresso machines have proven to be more complicate that I thought.  And the last couple days have had sunny spots that broke out of the pattern of rain.  I used the sunny bits to get some yard work done.   

I recently came into the possession of an older espresso machine made by La Pavoni, a manual machine called the Professional.  It is an advancement over the prior machine called the Europiccola by adding a pressure gauge, a drip tray, and a wand for steaming milk.  The particular machine was purchased in about 1980-1990 from a store in San Francisco CA that has since closed.  To test the machine, I need to get a drip tray and a portafilter-basket combination.  The drip tray should be simple (about $30) but the portafilter is proving to be harder to find.  It seems a design change was made in the closing days of 1999 and that affects the size of the portafilter.  The "pre-millennial" units have a 49mm portafilter while the Millennial units have a 51mm portafilter. I may have my acquisition date wrong because I think I have a 51mm unit, but I am not sure what to measure.  At $80, I am not in a hurry to make a speculative purchase.

There are some stickers on the bottom with potentially useful information.  The readable sticker gives the name of the retail shop, the one that has since closed.  The hard-to-read sticker admits the Professional name and a few other details, but not a serial number, model number, or date of manufacture.  I am in the process of opening the base to see if there is anything inside that admits to a date or identifying number. 

I do not actually need another espresso machine, but I would like to get this one working on general principles.  It was a fine device when manufactured and has many years of life remaining.  I can say that now because I have not examined the state of the internals.

We did have snow recently, but it is since gone.  It was a significant amount for this area - six to eight inches - and it shut down a lot of activities in the area, but it melted within about three days and was followed by a week of nice weather (see earlier posts about snowshoe trips).  The routine winter rains have resettled over the area but we still get "sun breaks", some as long as a day.  I use these breaks to get out, address garden tasks, and fill up the compost bin.    For reference, I think the compost bin has an official volume of 96 gallons and gets picked up each week (mostly).  In addition to yard waste, we are able to throw in food waste, so it is busy all-year round. The contents go to a professionally operated compost facility.  Back to our story.

One day, I pruned the roses by our back deck and filled the compost bin with trimmings (a climbing rose).  Other days, I have pruned the hydrangea shrubs we have scattered about.  I have lost count, but there are at least six, with sizes that were 6-8-feet-plus in diameter.  I also pruned some of the large rhododendron shrubs.  In the summer, I chip them into mulch, but because the winter ground is so soft, it is hard to get the chipper to the work areas, so they go off to the commercial compost pile.  More recently, I have trimmed back many of the ferns, especially along the walkway behind the garage and house.  Today, I pruned the apple tree and the holly.  I have cut back the holly more times than I can count; it is a vigorous tree.  I am pretty sure it is a volunteer.  Usually lurking among the plants are blackberry canes, so I must be sure to wear leather gloves.  I got ahead of myself this weekend.  After filling the compost bin with hydrangea trimmings, I got a second load from the apple tree, so the bin will be full again as soon as they haul away the hydrangea contents.  I may have to get out the chipper.

While I am on the topic of landscaping, I am glad that I do not yet have to mow.  The grass is growing, but growing slowly, so I can postpone mowing.  I have a spiffy new mower - battery powered and self-propelled - but I would rather not start the mowing season.  Further, I have spread some grass seed to fill in the muddy patches and I want to do a run with the dethatcher to get out more moss.  This is proving to be another good year for moss (that is - if you are the moss).  The demoss treatment for the roof has worked well, and we shall reapply later this year to stay on top of the problem.  I should find out more about the materials used so that I can apply them at Keats.

Snowshoe hike and video for 28 January 2022

Mount Rainier was a good hike but we decided it was not enough so on Friday, 28 Jan 2022, we did a snowshoe hike at Mount Baker.

Summary - 3.0 miles, 2:30 hours, 767 feet elevation gain.

We drove up toward the Mt. Baker ski area and then to the parking above Artist Point around Heather Meadows.  As a Friday, there was plenty of room to park.  As we passed the Mt. Baker White Salmon ski area, it looked pretty busy (three of four cars turned off there and we continued past).  The Heather Meadows facilities were closed as was the ski area, and that gave us some relief.

There were a few skiers but most were snowshoers.  The remaining few were in boots, often with Yak-traks or similar traction devices.  If one wanted to stick to the well-trodden trails, boots were sufficient.  We went off-trail in several places and the snowshoes were necessary to avoid postholes.  The day was sunny and warm, the wind relatively still.  It was not as warm as it had been on Rainier earlier in the week, so I kept a jacket on.  This was probably a mistake as the jacket arms were sodden at the end of the hike.  I unzipped the main zipper and the pit-zips, so my torso stayed dry.  

I have a lot of still photos from this area, in summer and in winter, so I used this as a chance to practice more with my GoPro (Hero 8 Black).  On Rainier, I generally went for long shots, many minutes at a time but on Baker, I tried a different filming technique.  I took more short shots, mostly panning shots of the scenery when I stopped, and a couple of walking shots on the way out.  I used my GravGrip stabilization device for the first half-hour, but it proved annoying to get in and out of my pocket.  More importantly, it did not seem to be doing anything to help.  I wanted it to help keep a level horizon, but it seemed to want to settle off-kilter.  I have a recollection that the counterweight could pivot to balance better, but it wouldn't move.  As a result, it did stabilize the shots a little but it was not aligned with the horizon.  I will play with it to find better technique, but I when to conventional handheld for the rest of the hike.  The in-camera stabilization seemed to work pretty well; I have forgotten if the camera does any horizon leveling, but the results are acceptable.

At the top of the hike, overlooking Mt. Baker and a large valley (must have been the Chain Lakes Loop Trailhead overlooking Ptarmigan Ridge), I got a phone call.  Given the quirks of geology and topology, it was a service area for cell phones.

Snowshoe hike and video on Monday - 26 January 2022

Trapped for days in a ground-hugging fog, we sought escape on Monday, 24 January 2022.  The weather report had gotten monotonous: day after day of heavy fog warnings in "lowland areas" covered the entire Puget Sound area.  Fog filled the valleys of metropolitan Seattle all day and the Weather Service extended the warnings each day for yet another day.  We had some days of pretty steady rain before that, so we were getting stir-crazy.  Another case of COVID cabin fever struck.  The fog went up to about 3000 feet and there was rumored to be sun above, so we knew where we had to go - to the mountains.  But not just any "mountains".  Stevens Pass is only about 3000 feet, barely above the fog, so we decided to go for Mount Rainier.

We usually head for the Henry Jackson Visitor Center at the Paradise area in Mount Rainier National Park (MRNP).  We have been there many times over the years, usualy a couple times each year.  It is easy access, has plenty of parking (if you arrive early enough), and the Paradise area is open year-round.  We visit the Sunrise area during the summer and shoulder seasons, but it is a bit farther and, well, it closes in the winter so it is not open until June or so?  The route to Paradise takes us through Puyallup, Elbe, Longmire, and up the part road to Paradise.  Our travel was uneventful.  We left the house about 9am (against an 8:30am target departure) and arrived with plenty of room to be found.  Of course, the 24th of January was a Monday, so we were riding the benefits of a retired life.  On the weekend, the crowds are sure to be much larger.

We grabbed our snowshoes, poles, and packs, and headed for the trail to Camp Muir.  Normally, there are some broad stairs and asphalt trails to welcome visitors, but all that was buried under snow.   We rather followed the asphalt trails but they are hard to find under the snow - and irrelevant.  However, muscle memory in the legs from all those summer visits lead one to familiar routes.  A few people were out with hiking boots but we were glad to have snowshoes.  Very simply, we did not have to look where we were walking.  Postholing was not a concern and we did not have to choose compacted routes;  the area of the snowshoes spreads our weight.  With the claws and heals on the snowshoes, we could walk a straight line that took us straight up a slope or allowed us to wander without fear of sliding sideways.  The younger set may not need poles, but the older crew finds them helpful to pull or restrain on slopes and very handy for balance.  We walked to a point a bit above the Dancefloor, closer to the Nisqually canyon, appreciated the views, and then headed down by the Dancefloor.  

The views were grand.  We could see the whole area above the fog in the valleys.  Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens stood proud on the horizon to the south, the Tatoosh Range clearly visible, and, of course, Tahoma herself to the north.  There was the odd cloud or contrail across the sky, but bright blue burned all around and above.  The temperatures were astounding - hot.  We did not measure the temperature, but a fellow hiker told us it was in the upper-60F range.  He said 67F, and while I am reluctant to believe that exact number, I did have to stop twice to remove layers of insulation.  I ended up wearing a wicking t-shirt and a "fishing" shirt.  It did get chilly in the shade, but we spent most of the time above the tree-line, so the sun warmed us virtually the entire time.  It was quite comfortable when walking, but I did put on my puffy sweater when we stopped.  Most of the people around us were also hiking in various ways (mostly snowshoes but several boots), and one guy even had a sled that he was pulling.  I guess he was going to spend the night at Camp Muir.  And there were a handful of skiers.  The overall hike was 2.5 miles (round-trip) in 2:00 hours, and the vertical rise was 870 feet.  Paradise is right around 5000 feet altitude.  

I grabbed some photos, but I used this outing as a training ground for GoPro video.  In the past, I have done timelapse and even Time Warp to some degree of success, but with this trip I wanted to do some post-processing to produce a more structured video. I did skip the bit about preparing a story - my "story" was to be a snowshoe hike on Mount Rainier - so I planned for a series of clips.  To this end, I chose Video > Cinematic at 4K, 24fps, SuperView, and auto-steady (I think GoPro calls it hypersteady or similar).  I used handheld with no special adaptations (no external stabilizer, just the in-camera features).  On the route up, I started with shorter clips, a minute or so each and mostly panoramas, and on the return down, I took longer clips while in motion.  I ended up with about 20 minutes of video that I cut down to 14 minutes in DaVinci Resolve 17.  My first edit ran over the YouTube limit of 15 minutes, so my second version cut that down to almost exactly 14 minutes and I added some titles.  I did nothing with the audio and I only used fades on the title sections - no fancy crossfades.  

(Note - although I can adjust the placement of the photos, Blogger insists on centering the video.)

A Wreck Not the Edmund Fitzgerald - 23 January 2022

In Vancouver BC there is a barge.  Washed up in a storm, it has come to rest in a park.  The analysis seems to conclude that it has found a final resting place; it will not move under natural causes.  So someone wrote a song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnqFpswfquI